tegra8

oh just wait til you go through admissions and see people being admitted with significantly lower scores than you because of their race... then we'll talk

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how do you know that they were accepted because of thier race without reading their personal statements/and letters of rec??? You, Sir, are an idot.

nope, obviously you are overlooking the fact that decent numbers + URM = major acceptances, LOR's or PS dont have to be anything special if you have those in your favor

and as for the LSN point, what is the incentive for someone to lie on an anonymous database? admittedly there are several profiles that you can look at and tell they are blatantly lying, but for the most part the profiles are reasonable. And since the top schools dont publish their "acceptance" grids through LSAC there arent many other resources to use

LSN is a fallible database and so is your claim that you may have a better chnce at gaining acceptance to a top 20 school if you play the race card. What many people--yourself included--fail to understand is that AA is NOT there to undermine the intellectual capabilities and talents of minorities. It is there to ensure that discriminatory practices against women and people of color are abated.

Wouldn't a race blind admissions system accomplish this more effectively? If adcoms had no way of knowing the race of an applicant, they wouldn't be able to discriminate.

Given the history of this country, without the policy of AA racial and sexual discrimination would be moreso prevalent in today's society. Without it, access to higher education or any professional field for African Americans and other minorities would be even more difficult to attain.

Well ok, but is your goal greater access for minorities or an end to discrimination? The latter can be accomplished without the former and vice versa. The point I have been making is that allowing minorities greater access without looking at the broader picture of their success rates once they gain access is irresponsible and inimical to the goals of AA.

And as the American government we want to ensure that there really is "equality for all" citizens, correct?.. especially for those who have built this country that we call America? The ancestors of African Americans have never had the same access as White males, but their generation now have a BETTER chance. The issue of whether there really is equality for Blacks over two centuries after the ending of slavery is a topic that can be debated. Either way, I will always be in full support of AA.

Well, now you seem to be back to the equality issue, but you never sufficiently define it. Then you go back to the access issue What exactly does "equality" entail? What metrics are their for assessing the amount of access available to minorities?

"My next store neighbor might win the lottery, and I might be really jealous of him and wish I had won the lottery. However, this is hardly grounds for me to get mad at him, since his good fortune doesn't change my lot. "

Would this make you advocate AA for the lottery, afterall, not many black people are winning, since they are too poor to afford the tickets. Just asking.

I have been saying we should just foget the race box, if it wasnt htere people could get in on THEIR OWN merit and not worry about if it was the color of thier skin or not. This seems to be the best idea.

Even without a race box, it would be very likely for admission boards to figure out a person's ethnicity/race/background if this is mentioned or hinted at in a person's personal fill out a raxe box but lists his/her race but lists Black Student Association as an activity on the application or writes a personal statement describing "How visiting my relatives in Mexico changed my life," it would be virtually the same as filling out that box.

"My next store neighbor might win the lottery, and I might be really jealous of him and wish I had won the lottery. However, this is hardly grounds for me to get mad at him, since his good fortune doesn't change my lot. "

Would this make you advocate AA for the lottery, afterall, not many black people are winning, since they are too poor to afford the tickets. Just asking.

I can be a member of the black student society, or even the Asian club without being black or asian.

You're quite right; however, you can see how this might give clues (even if they are misleading) to admissions people. My maint point in the post should have been that if the race box is eliminated, people would still mention their race opportunistically in another portion of the application, or they may include misleading clues to their own advantage.